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Published by EH.NET (October 2002) 
 
Steven Medema and Warren Samuels, editors, _Historians of Economics and Economic Thought:
The Construction of Disciplinary Memory_. New York: Routledge, 2001. x + 360 pp. $110
(hardback), ISBN: 0-415-18581-5.
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Roger Frantz, Department of Economics, San Diego State University.
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The title accurately describes this interesting book. The book is about historians of
economic thought -- their philosophies and research agendas, as well as the divisions
within this subgroup of economists -- more than it is about the history of ideas. The
volume contains an Introduction by Medema and Samuels, and eighteen chapters, covering the
work and philosophies of eighteen historians of economics. The historians written about
include Neil De Marchi, Roy Weintraub, Philip Mirowski, Donald Moggridge, William Barber,
Bob Coats, Mark Blaug, Samuel Hollander, Werner Stark, F.A. Hayek, Joan Robinson, and
Maurice Dobb. The authors of these eighteen chapters are twenty-two other historians of
economics including Roger Backhouse, Kenneth Carpenter, John Davis, Neil De Marchi, Steven
Medema, Howard Pack, Ingrid Rima, Warren Samuels, Margaret Schabas, and Jeffrey Young.
There is a great deal to learn about the "life of the mind" from the forty historians who
comprise the volume.
 
One theme made clear is that many historians of economics feel besieged by the majority of
economists who do not care about the history of the discipline. The authors of the volume
are, on the whole, a bit defensive about the subject. Even on page one of their
Introduction, editors Medema and Samuels express this by addressing the idea that the
history of thought is irrelevant. The orthodox view is that knowing about past economists
does not help one understand ideas and theories. Medema and Samuels refer to this as a
conceit -- that in essence the history of economics is not needed because everything of
value from the past has been incorporated into current theory. They call it an illusion to
believe that, having discarded all the errors, there now exists a "coherent, unequivocal,
univocal body of ideas" (p. 1).
 
The defensiveness is understandable given the thrust of the economics profession. But it
is also a bit odd given the character of both those written about and the authors. Reading
about historians of economics by historians of economics will give the reader the clear
impression that both groups consist of scholars; individuals of far reaching intellect,
and; people interested in economics, history, and philosophy to mention but three fields.
Having met William Barber at the History of Economics Society 2002 Conference, my
impression is that here is a gentleman and a scholar. Reading about him in this volume
gives the same impression. There is a chapter on Philip Mirowski, whose interdisciplinary
work is far reaching, to say the least. In another chapter John Davis writes about Donald
Moggridge, the co-editor of Keynes' _Collected Writings_ (a 28-year undertaking) and the
author of a major biography on Keynes. Reading about these people by these people might
make you wonder why people of such intellectual expanse would, on the whole, feel under
siege in their profession. If you think that it is because the rest of the profession are
simply their intellectual superiors, then think again.
 
Certain descriptions of the historians being discussed appear frequently, revealing the
personal and work characteristics valued by the authors, and the sub-discipline in
general. These descriptions include: breadth of reading; intellectual curiosity and
passion; an interdisciplinary approach to economics, via a study of the law, institutions,
culture, and history; a desire for deep understanding (that does not come solely from
econometric results); appreciating the larger aspects of economics; a writer of _books_;
and valuing knowledge for its own sake. There is also a distinction made between the
narrowness of neoclassical theory and the broadness of the historians being written about,
and a disdain for heroic abstractions. In one interesting case, Kenneth Carpenter and
Laurence Moss compare George Stigler's methodology and philosophy, unfavorably to that of
William D. Grampp.
 
A second major theme follows from the first: how historians of economics are different
from other economists. Most economists turn their attention to the history of economics
during a later part of their careers. A chapter by John Lodewijks on Roy Weintraub shows
an exception to this rule. Weintraub turned to the history of economics relatively early
in his career, bringing with him a solid background in mathematics. I, on the other hand,
am apparently not an exception to the rule. History of Thought was one of my favorite
undergraduate and graduate classes. I always had more books about history of thought in my
office than my colleagues, and I could never understand the arrogance of my colleagues who
would say with pride, "Anything published before 1970 is worthless." I never placed a
great deal of emphasis on math, and I started teaching the history of economics relatively
late in my career, at approximately age fifty (five years ago). I read parts of Smith's
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_ and it was clear to me that in his own terms, Smith was
speaking about intuition and the difference in brain functioning of the left and right
hemispheres of the neocortex. (Neuroscience presented evidence about this more than two
hundred years later.) It was then that I began teaching the history of economics.
 
A third major theme is how and why we should study the history of economic ideas. This
volume makes it clear that simply knowing what economists of the past have said is not the
major reason for studying the history of economics. In his chapter on Werner Stark,
Charles Clark sums it up nicely. It is not that Smith, Mill, Marshall, Keynes and the like
"discovered the ultimate 'Truths' ... but that they have discovered relative truths,
insights into the economic and social realities of their respective epochs. If we
correctly learn this lesson from the history of economics, then as a discipline it has
served its purpose of better preparing economists for the task of critically understanding
and explaining their own economic and social realities" (p. 317). If you want to read
about mature scholars written by other mature scholars, then I recommend this book.
 
 
Roger Frantz is a Professor of Economics at San Diego State University. His latest
publication is "Herbert Simon: Artificial Intelligence as a Framework for Understanding
Intuition," _Journal of Economic Psychology_, (in press). He is completing a manuscript
with a working title, _Intuition in the History of Economic Thought_, to be published by
Kluwer in 2004.
 
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